


Bees in Bed: Heavy Comfort

by Kiiratam



Series: Bees in Bed [12]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Comfort, F/F, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Yang is trying to get better, Yangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:30:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22585060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: It's a final cold snap before spring, and Yang is experiencing something she hasn't felt in a long time. Freezing in her bed, because her dad won't turn the heat up.Takes place around Volume 4, Chapter 4, before the final scene. (My BMBLB fic index)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: Bees in Bed [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1482350
Comments: 6
Kudos: 68





	Bees in Bed: Heavy Comfort

Shivering violently, Yang crawled out of bed, the sheets seeming to cling to her, ripping the last of her body heat away. She couldn't remember being this cold since... it would have had to been before her Semblance activated. The more charge she held in her Aura, the warmer she felt.

  
And Yang's Aura was empty. She hadn't been hit since Beacon. Maybe a stubbed toe. Usually, she'd get enough to be comfortably warm, just from sparring. Or doing something reckless and stupid, like jumping out of a tree, or dropping a dumbbell on her foot, or... It didn't really matter.

  
Yang wasn't sparring. And she didn't trust herself enough to try anything stupid. Not with how her mind was going.

  
Huffing out breaths, she tried to keep her steps light on the cold floor. Did her dad have to keep the heat so low? Was it even on? He probably just had the little electric heater on in his room. Zwei had probably snuck in. But honestly, Zwei would probably be fine sleeping outside in this weather. Maybe he was just curled up in a ball in his bed. Or on the couch. Her dad may not have thought Yang would get cold. She hadn't for years, after all. 

  
She opened the door to her room, and slipped down the hall to Ruby's. Ruby was gone; it wasn't like she'd mind if Yang borrowed some blankets.

  
Yang took a stray thought about Ruby not caring about her at all, and tore it to pieces between her one hand and teeth. Ruby cared. Ruby loved her. She'd said it. Even if she'd left. Leaving Yang alone, except for their dad. Ruby had said it a lot, even if Yang hadn't actually listened.

  
Swiping her hand over her eyes, Yang opened Ruby's door. Ruby had gone with the early snows; she hadn't needed to get the heavy blankets out. Awkwardly, with only one hand, she pulled the bottom drawer of Ruby's dresser out. Right where Yang had put it away last year was Ruby's heavy blanket. She dragged it out, thick and dark red, with a pattern of curling brambles. Every time, their dad joked about losing his Rose in the brambles. Or pretending that the blanket was prickly, and acting with exaggerated care around it when he kissed Ruby goodnight.

  
She was pretty sure Summer had bought it. Or it had been hers, at least. Her dad had just a little catch in his voice when he was around it, and Yang had seen him brush his hand over it when Ruby was out of the room, and sigh. Yang had nearly asked Qrow about it, which was a measure of her curiosity. Because she was only _pretty_ sure that it had been Summer's. She had worn a much brighter red, brighter than Ruby's. And Raven... in that picture Qrow had shown her, Raven had been in this exact shade of dark red. 

  
Yang lifted the blanket to her shoulder, and nudged the dresser drawer shut with her foot. She swore she could see her breath; she needed to get back to bed, and try to actually warm up. Blowing out a breath, she tried to move briskly and quietly back to her room. She closed Ruby's door behind her.

  
There had been an obvious solution to all this, and it hadn't involved getting a blanket. But... Yang wasn't sure how much she trusted her Semblance anymore.

  
Which was absurd. It was a part of her. Adam hadn't cut it away, leaving it on the floor of the dining hall. 

  
But it hadn't saved her. Yang had always relied on it to give her a last shot, a final retort, a double-or-nothing blow - and she hadn't gotten it. The tri-tone woman on the train - it hadn't saved her then, either. But that had been a fight, even if it hadn't been her best showing. And she'd learned from it - her fight with Neon, who was at least as impossible to hit - that had gone better. Even if it was just keeping her endurance up, keeping the pressure on Neon until she made a mistake. 

  
Adam - it hadn't been a fight.

  
Yang closed her door, and crawled back into bed, Ruby's blanket - still folded - on top. She grabbed both the corners - no, she didn't. Yang grabbed one corner, and swore she _felt_ the texture of the blanket on the fingertips of her missing hand. Phantom pains - they were annoying, but pain was pain. Yang could deal with physical pain. Even the mental trick, the mistaken imagining of physical pain. She'd trained for years to deal with it, push through it, keep moving, keep closing, keep throwing punches, keep building up charge. And then pay everything back. With interest. The phantom sensations, on the other hand-

  
She snorted. Literally on the other hand. It was getting better. Yang was starting to be able to laugh at herself. To make jokes about her new normal. Even read the documentation that had come with the prosthetic arm. Maybe she'd actually try it on soon. It would make all of these mundane tasks a lot easier. Even if Yang had come to oddly appreciate having to relearn how to do things. It had helped, giving her something to do. A line to drag herself out of her misery. 

  
Spreading Ruby's blanket over her bed, she pulled it up over her head. Curled up in a tight little ball, she breathed deeply, letting the air warm inside her lungs, exhaling from her mouth, trying to cultivate some heat.

  
Yang knew her dad would help her get fighting fit again. He'd taught her once, and he spent all that time at Signal, teaching the tiny kids footwork. And he still had plenty of tricks she hadn't learned. Their styles had diverged, but the grounding was the same. She needed to remember to ask him about one-armed fighting. Just in case. 

  
She sighed, uncurling a bit and encountering fresh, icy sheets. Slowly pushing out her warmth. Ruby's blanket was really heavy, almost like some kind of weird full-body hug. Comforting. It still faintly smelled like her sister, which helped.

  
Not her insomnia, though. That was still present, taunting her. It wasn't like sleeping wasn't perilous in its own way. The repeating of her dreams didn't diminish the terror they caused. Maybe if she actually got to sleep, the weight of the blanket and the smell of Ruby would help. 

  
Yang snaked her hand out from her nest, groping blindly at her bedside table for her scroll. She moved delicately, trying not to knock it off. Getting out of bed again, trying to find it on the floor - that would just be annoying.

  
Finding it, she pulled it under the blankets, unrolling it. She had a white noise generator on it that seemed to help. Sometimes. They had a lot of options to choose from. Which was good, because her nightmares had a tendency to incorporate whatever white noise she'd chosen, and picking that option again just guaranteed a particular nightmare.

  
Which might be _useful_ , if any of those nightmares were not quite as bad. But they were all terrible, just with slightly different flavors. 'Who do I want to be abandoned by tonight?' was not a game Yang wanted to play.

  
She really wished she'd recorded a few nights at Beacon. Being able to listen to Ruby's snoring, and Weiss' sleep-talking, the whirr of the AC, the odd person passing in the hall - it was the last time she'd slept well. Plus, if you actually listened to Weiss, she could say some pretty funny things in her sleep.

  
Yang thought _she_ was cold. Poor Weiss, up in Atlas.

  
...Schnee Dust Company Heiress. Weiss probably had her own thermostat. And butlers ready to bring her extra blankets. But still, the weather outside in Atlas was no joke. All the lien in the world wouldn't help with that.

  
She hoped Weiss was doing okay. Weiss hadn't really _complained_ about her family, but... some of the things she'd done, the way she'd acted, how the affection between Yang and Ruby had made her quirk her mouth a little, like it confused her... All the lien in the world couldn't fix a family.

  
Weiss was strong, and smart. And she'd learned at Beacon. More than Huntressing. Yang hoped Weiss would survive. As Weiss, not the Ice Queen. Until Ruby could save Haven, and go get her. Ruby could do it.

  
Yang was so proud of her little sister. Ruby had overtaken her, kept on fighting the good fight. Even when Yang had been sidelined. And she'd tried to pull Yang up, get her on her feet. Yang couldn't blame Ruby for not doing succeeding. You couldn't force someone to stand, to take on responsibilities. Not while being one of the good guys.

  
But Yang was finding her feet again, even if her legs were shaky. She'd get up, and chase after her sister. Crawl until you could walk, walk until you could run, run until you get there.

  
She wasn't sure what kind of white noise to try tonight. Maybe rainfall? She'd been avoiding it, because she thought it might leave her waking up in a bad mood. Maybe she'd be able to get away with just a 'ick, rain' dream, as opposed to a nightmare.

  
Her finger slipped, and her scroll started opening her video folder.

  
Yang uncurled a bit more, stretching her legs out most of the way. She still wasn't really used to operating her scroll with her left hand. While reaching for the back button, the video thumbnails loaded.

  
She bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut. It wasn't the recording she'd taken of a weird noise Bumblebee had been making (she'd found that loose screw), or the ones of Zwei playing. Or even the one she'd taken of JNPR's fight in the Vytal Tournament, when she'd zoomed in on Nora getting struck by lightning, intending to put some heavy metal over it. It wasn't even Nora and Pyrrha, back to back in their doubles match, seconds before _wrecking_ their opponents.

  
No, the problem was that Blake's smiling face had popped up on over half the videos.

  
Turning and burying her face in her pillow, Yang fought back her sobs.

  
It wasn't fair. Blake had left, without a word. The last noise Yang had heard her make was a scream. She'd left. Why wasn't she gone?

  
Yang swallowed her emotions, trying to breath evenly. In, hold, out.

  
Blake wasn't gone because Yang was still holding on. To her stupid breathing trick, to all of these dumb videos of her, to the hope that she was safe, that Adam hadn't caught her. 

  
She really was belladonna. Beautiful and poisonous. Still in Yang's head, hurting her more. The sooner Yang let her go, the better off she'd be.

  
Blowing out a breath, Yang lifted her head. She'd lived for years without Blake's breathing trick. Got through all of the stress of Signal without it. Having to be the adult in the house, taking care of Ruby, and her dad, and even her uncle, before he pushed her away. She could stop using it. It was just a dumb trick.

  
The hope, the caring about her, about her safety, all of that - it would flow away once she got rid of everything else. Just another person she'd had some good times with, and those were gone. No reason to worry about them anymore.

  
And the videos - those were the easiest. Yang started selecting videos - she'd been obsessed, with a stupid crush - it would take forever to delete them one by one. She just needed to delete them all in one go.

  
Later, Yang could go through the rest, see if she wanted to keep the ones with Blake incidentally in them. She could pick and choose. No point in pretending that RWBY hadn't existed. Yang would just have to train herself back up, and catch up with her sister before she also went after Blake. Maybe Yang would be able to help retrieve Weiss. But Blake had left of her own accord, and Yang was going to talk Ruby out of trying to chase down anyone who wanted to stay gone.

  
She really had been obsessed. Addicted. There were so many of them.

  
Yang wriggled her toes. Finally, she was back at a comfortable temperature. She'd poke her head out before she went to sleep; didn't want to overheat.

  
Misclicked. 

  
The video played.

  
Found herself unable to twitch her thumb, stop the video. Just watched as wonder spread over Blake's face, eyes brightening, starting to smile, set against the trees fronting Secret Beach.

  
_Pretty._

  
Her thumb twitched. Hit replay.

  
_I miss her._

  
Again.

  
_I can't. I can't do it. I can't cut her out._

  
Again. She could barely see the screen, but she wanted to keep watching.

  
_She was hurt, and I helped. And I cared. Pretending that I didn't... I shouldn't hurt myself like that. Even if I never see her again._

  
Again.

  
Yang breathed in, held it, let it out. Switched to her white noise app, and thumbed on rainfall. She should finish reading her prosthetic's documentation tomorrow. Start planning some light exercise, more than just getting the mail. Maybe rewatch some more of the videos on her scroll. Just... in moderation. 

  
She kept her steady breathing up, and poked her head out from under Ruby's blanket. Listening to the patter of rainfall, and trying to unfocus her mind.

  
Drifting in dreams of mild exasperation, because she had _planned_ to take Bumblebee out for a drive, and now it was _raining_ , so she'd just have to stay _in_ and grind through some homework, instead of getting to have _fun_ , and...


End file.
